3D-Printer-Based Test-Bench for Contactless Respiratory Monitoring Systems

Respiratory monitoring is becoming an interesting research topic in many areas (health care, automotive, and aviation). One of the most prominent non-contact technologies is mm-wave radar, which allows real-time thoracic skin mm-movements tracking. The following work focuses on developing a test-bench to verify the performance of a breathing rate monitoring device based on a mm-wave radar. The innovative element of the setup concerns a 3D printer programmed by an automatic geometric code (G-code) generation tool that converts an ordered sequence of arbitrary temporal-position coordinates into a series of low-level instructions for reproducing the movement. A dielectric skin-equivalent dummy completes the test-bench and is used in the final stage to validate a 60 GHz radar-based system simulating respiratory displacement with physiological amplitudes and frequencies.